You can perform standard computer management tasks on a server hosting the RAS Connection Broker right from the RAS Console. These include Remote Desktop Connection, remote PowerShell, Computer Management, Service Management, Event Viewer, IPconfig, Reboot, and others. To access the Tools menu, select a server, click Tasks > Tools and choose a desired tool. For requirements and usage information, see Computer Management Tools.
RAS Connection Broker provides load balancing of published applications and desktops. A RAS Connection Broker is automatically installed on a server on which you install Parallels RAS and is designated as the primary Connection Broker. Each Site must have a primary RAS Connection Broker but can also have secondary Connection Brokers added to it. The purpose of a secondary Connection Broker is to ensure that users do not experience any interruption of the service due to possible failure of the primary RAS Connection Broker. This chapter describes how to add RAS Connection Brokers to a Site and how to configure them.
To enable or disable a secondary Connection Broker in a Site, select it in the Connection Brokers list and then select or clear the check box at the beginning of the row.
Each secondary Connection Broker is given a priority. To change the priority, select a secondary Connection Broker and use the "Up arrow" and "Down arrow" icons (or Tasks > Move up, Move down) to move it up or down the list. The higher the agent is in the list, the higher the priority.
If the primary Connection Broker cannot be recovered, you can promote a secondary Connection Broker to primary as follows:
Open the RAS Console on the Connection Broker server that you would like to promote (all required files are automatically installed when a server is added to a Site as a secondary Connection Broker).
Select the Farm category and navigate to the Connection Brokers node.
Select the Connection Broker and then click Tasks > Promote to primary.
Click OK once the process is finished.
If the primary Connection Broker goes offline, you will need to promote a secondary Connection Broker to take its place. The auto-promotion feature can do it automatically after a specified time period.
By default, auto-promotion is turned off. To enable it, do the following:
In the RAS Console, navigate to Farm > <Site> > Connection Brokers.
Select the Auto-promotion tab in the right pane.
Select the Enable auto-promotion option and specify the time period after which the next secondary Connection Broker should be promoted to primary. The time period can be set between 15 minutes and 72 hours (the default value is 30 min).
Select the Enable failback option if you want the original Connection Broker to become primary again should it go back online. For the Licensing Site, this eliminates license activation if failback happens within 72 hours. The license activation countdown is always displayed in the RAS Console, so the administrator can check if the original primary Connection Broker recovers within this time period or not. If the original agent goes back online after the 72-hour period (and if the Farm has been already reactivated), it will become a secondary Connection Broker.
Note: To enable auto-promotion, you need at least three active Connection Brokers in a Site. If you have less than three, the auto-promotion is ignored.
Please also note that auto-promotion must be disabled if you have a single Site with Connection Brokers split across different locations with bad WAN links. If there's no link between Connection Broker located remotely, the third Connection Broker acts as a witness to prevent split-brain.
When auto-promotion takes place, the RAS administrator will receive notifications via email about the following events:
A secondary Connection Broker has been promoted to primary.
Auto-promotion of a secondary Connection Broker has failed.
Auto-promotion failback completed.
To delete a secondary Connection Broker, select it in the list and then click Delete in the Tasks drop-down list.
To view RAS Connection Brokers installed in a Site, navigate to Farm > <Site> > Connection Brokers in the RAS Console. The installed Connection Brokers are listed on the Connection Brokers tab in the right pane.
A Site must have at least the primary Connection Broker installed, which is marked so in the Priority column. You can also add secondary agents to a Site for redundancy (described in the section that follows this one).
To modify the configuration of a Connection Broker, select it and then click Tasks > Properties (or right-click > Properties). The Properties dialog opens where you can modify the following:
Enable Server in site: Enables or disables the Connection Broker. The option is enabled for secondary Connection Brokers only. It is disabled for the primary Connection Broker.
Server: Specifies the FDQN or IP address of the server that hosts the Connection Broker. To automatically resolve IP address to FQDN, enable the global Name Resolution option. For details, see Host Name Resolution.
IP: Specifies the server IP address. Click the Resolve button to obtain the IP address automatically using the FQDN specified in the Server field. This IP address is used so that multiple Connection Brokers share information in real time.
Alternate IPs: Specifies one or more alternate IP addresses separated by a semicolon. These addresses will be used if RAS Secure Gateways fail to connect to the RAS Connection Broker using its FQDN or the address specified in the IP field. This can happen, for example, if Secure Gateways are connecting from a network which is not joined to Active Directory.
Description: A user-defined description.
Standby: If selected, puts a secondary Connection Broker into a standby mode. This means that no agent will connect to this Connection Broker until another Connection Broker goes offline. This option is enabled automatically for any new secondary Connection Broker in excess of the three agents that already exist. It is not recommended to have more than three active Connection Brokers because it may degrade system performance. Using this option you can have more than three agents, but have them in standby mode until they are needed. For more information, see Secondary Connection Brokers.
When done making the changes, click OK and then click Apply in the main RAS Console window.
The Tasks drop-down list on the Connection Brokers tab has the following items:
Add. Adds a RAS Connection Broker to the Site. See the section that follows this one for the information on how to add secondary Connection Brokers.
Upgrade all Agents. Upgrades agents to the current version. The item is disabled if all agents are up to date.
Tools. Gives you access to a set of standard server management tools.
Troubleshooting. The Check agent menu item verifies that the Connection Broker is functioning properly. It opens a dialog where you can see the verification results and optionally install (or uninstall) the Connection Broker. The Logging menu item allows you to configure logging and retrieve or clear log files. For more information, see Logging.
Promote to primary. Promotes a secondary Connection Broker to primary. The current primary becomes a secondary Connection Broker.
Refresh. Refreshes the Connection Brokers list.
Delete. Deletes a secondary Connection Broker from the Site. To delete the primary Connection Broker, you first need to promote a secondary Connection Broker to primary.
Settings audit. Opens the Settings Audit dialog where you can view the changes that were done to the Connection Broker. For more information, see Settings Audit.
Move up and Move down. Changes the priority of a secondary Connection Broker (moves it up or down in the priority list).
Properties. Opens the Connection Broker Properties dialog (see above).
In addition to the Connection Broker editor described above, you can also see the summary about the available RAS Connection Brokers. To do so:
In the RAS Console, navigate to the Farm > <Site> .
The available RAS Connection Brokers are displayed in the Connection Brokers group on the Site Info tab.
To go to the Connection Brokers editor, right-click a RAS Connection Broker and choose Show in the editor.
For additional info, see Sites in the RAS Console.
You can configure Parallels RAS to automatically connect to an alternative Connection Broker when one of Connection Brokers is not responding.
To enable automatic connection to an alternative Connection Broker:
In the RAS Console, click Tools > Options on the main menu (that's the menu at the top of the RAS Console window).
In the Options dialog, select the Automatically connect to an alternative Connection Broker when required option.
Click OK.
A secondary Connection Broker is added to a Site for redundancy. This way if the primary Connection Broker fails, the secondary Connection Broker is still available to handle the requests. Connection Brokers work in active/active manner to ensure high availability. In case of a Connection Broker failure, the next agent is always ready to handle the load. In general, the N+1 redundancy approach should be used per Site. Note that for auto-promotion you shouldn't have more than three Connection Brokers (auto-promotion is described later in this section).
When you have one more secondary Connection Brokers installed, the runtime data is replicated on each agent, so if any service fails, the downtime is reduced to a minimum. In addition, any active Connection Broker is used for authentication purposes with both the AD and any 2nd level authentication provider used.
The primary Connection Broker performs the same tasks as secondary Connection Brokers but has additional responsibilities. It manages certain processes that must be managed by a single Connection Broker. The following table lists processes managed by the primary Connection Broker and secondary Connection Brokers:
| Process | Primary Connection Broker | Secondary Connection Brokers |
|---|---|---|
As a demonstration of how load distribution between multiple Connection Brokers works, consider the following example:
Suppose we have two Connection Brokers: PA1 (primary) and PA2 (secondary).
Suppose we also have 10 RD Session Hosts: RDS1, RDS2 ... RDS10
The resulting load will be distributed as follows:
RDS1, RDS2 ... RDS4 will use PA1 as their preferred Connection Broker.
RDS5, RDS6 ... RDS10 will use PA2 as their preferred Connection Broker.
RAS Connection Brokers running on the same Site communicate with each other and share the load. The amount of data being transmitted from one agent to another is quite large, so a reliable high-speed communication channel must be ensured (e.g. a subnetwork can be configured for Connection Broker communications).
When adding a secondary Connection Broker to a Site, you specify an IP address for it. Make sure that the IP addresses of all agents belong to the same network segment. The port that Connection Brokers use to communicate with each other is TCP 20030.
There's no physical limit to how many Connection Brokers you can add to a Site. However, the best results are achieved with only two-three agents present. The three-agent scenario is highly recommended, especially when you have Providers and want to enable high availability for VDI. Adding more than two secondary Connection Brokers to a Site may have a reverse effect and actually degrade the system performance. Note that this does not apply to secondary Connection Brokers in standby mode, which is explained in Configuring RAS Connection Brokers.
To add a secondary Connection Broker:
In the RAS console, navigate to Farm > <Site> > Connection Brokers.
Click the Tasks drop-down list and choose Add to launch the Add RAS Connection Broker wizard.
The Server field specifies the FDQN or IP address of the server that hosts the RAS Connection Broker. To automatically resolve IP address to FQDN, enable the global Name Resolution option. For details, see Host Name Resolution.
The IP field specifies the server IP address. Click the Resolve button to obtain the IP address automatically using the FQDN specified in the Server field.
The Alternative IPs field specifies one or more alternative IP addresses, separated by a semicolon. These addresses will be used if RAS Secure Gateways fail to connect to the RAS Connection Broker using its FQDN or the address specified in the IP field. This can happen, for example, if Secure Gateways are connecting from a different network, which is not joined to Active Directory.
Select the Install a Secure Gateway with a Connection Broker option if you also want to install a RAS Secure Gateway on the specified server. If you select this option, you may also select the Enable HTML5 Gateway option (for more info, see Configure User Portal).
Select the Add Firewall Rules option to automatically configure the firewall on the server. See Port Reference for details.
Click Next.
On the next page, click Install to install the RAS Connection Broker on the server. The Installing RAS Redundancy Service dialog opens.
Select the server on which the RAS Connection Broker is to be installed and click Install.
Click Done.
Click OK to add the server to the Farm.
Monitor PAs (counters)
Yes
Yes
Monitor RD Session Hosts (counters)
Yes
Yes
Monitor Providers (counters)
Yes
Yes
Monitor RDS Sessions (reconnection)
Yes
Yes
Monitor Deployed RDS applications
Yes
Yes
Monitor VDI session (reconnections)
Yes
Yes
Manage system settings
Yes
No
Send licensing information & heart beat
Yes
No
Process and send CEP information
Yes
No
Send information to reporting server
Yes
No
Manage RDS scheduler
Yes
No
Reporting engine information
Yes
Future versions
Shadowing
Yes
Future versions
Send email notifications
Yes
No